Chapter 10 - The Price of a Wife
Colonel Hale’s wife was supposed to be dead.
That was the first problem.
She had died three years earlier after a long illness.
At least officially.
Aaron searched medical records.
The death certificate existed.
Hospital records existed.
Funeral records existed.
But no burial.
Cremation.
Ethan looked at General Cross.
“Another convenient death.”
Cross’s face hardened.
They found security footage of Hale leaving headquarters.
Alone.
He drove to an abandoned medical research facility once funded indirectly by Northbridge.
Jake insisted on joining the recovery team.
Cross refused.
Jake stared at him.
Cross sighed.
“You’re going regardless.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then stay behind people with better training.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That means actually stay behind them.”
Jake hesitated.
Cross pointed.
“Corporal.”
“Yes, sir.”
The facility looked empty.
Inside, they found Hale.
Unarmed.
Standing beside a hospital bed.
His wife, Laura, lay unconscious but alive.
Hale looked at them.
“I didn’t know.”
Ethan lowered his weapon.
“What happened?”
Hale explained.
Northbridge had offered an experimental treatment years ago.
He thought Laura died after complications.
They staged her death.
Then secretly kept her alive.
A human insurance policy.
Every time Hale resisted, they sent proof she still lived.
“You kept working for them,” Jake said.
“Sometimes.”
“How much?”
Hale’s voice broke.
“Enough to hate myself.”
General Cross entered.
Hale could barely meet his eyes.
“Nathaniel.”
Cross looked at Laura.
Then at Hale.
“You should have told me.”
“They said they’d kill her.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“I trusted you with soldiers. Missions. War.”
Hale looked at his wife.
“I couldn’t trust anyone with her.”
Cross understood more than he wanted to.
Ethan asked, “Who told you to leave today?”
Hale handed him a burner phone.
A message.
COME ALONE OR SHE DIES FOR REAL.
Sender unknown.
Aaron traced it.
The signal came from inside the facility.
They were not alone.
Agents searched.
In a lower laboratory, they found three technicians destroying records.
One tried escaping.
Jake cornered him near a loading dock.
The man raised his hands.
“Don’t shoot.”
“I’m not holding a gun.”
The technician looked confused.
Jake pointed behind him.
Aaron stood with one.
“He is.”
The technician surrendered.
Interrogation revealed the remaining operation.
Jonathan had built redundancies.
After his arrest, an automated contingency began destroying evidence and relocating human assets.
Laura Hale was one.
There were others.
Witnesses.
Former employees.
Compromised officers.
People believed dead.
The investigation widened again.
But this time they had the ledger.
They found them.
One by one.
Alive.
Some terrified.
Some guilty.
Some both.
Hale turned himself in voluntarily.
Cross promised no favors.
Only truth.
“I understand,” Hale said.
Jake visited him before federal authorities transferred him.
Hale sat behind glass.
“You hate me?”
Jake thought.
“No.”
“You should.”
“I don’t think you get to decide that.”
Hale almost smiled.
Jake leaned closer.
“You made terrible choices.”
“Yes.”
“But you also helped us.”
“That doesn’t erase anything.”
“No.”
Jake remembered what Ethan said.
No balance sheet for morality.
No easy cancellation.
“Laura asked about you,” Jake said.
Hale’s eyes filled.
“She’s awake?”
“This morning.”
He closed his eyes.
“Thank God.”
Jake stood.
Hale said, “Corporal.”
Jake turned.
“Why did you pay his dinner?”
Jake laughed softly.
“Still?”
“I want to know.”
“He needed help.”
Hale nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Jake left.
Outside, Ethan waited.
“You’re becoming the moral support corporal.”
“Worst promotion ever.”
Ethan laughed.
For the first time Jake heard what General Cross’s son might have sounded like before four years in hiding.
Then Ethan became serious.
“We found something.”
Of course they had.
He handed Jake a report.
Northbridge had monitored Harbor Light for years.
Not because Ethan used it.
Because Jonathan used it.
Booth Seven was a dead-drop location.
Michael Reynolds discovered it twenty-three years earlier.
Jake frowned.
“So my father knew.”
“Yes.”
“And General Cross happened to go there two weeks ago?”
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
Jake looked up.
“My father asked him to.”
“What?”
“Not directly.”
Ethan showed him an old letter discovered in Michael’s attorney’s files.
Michael had written Nathaniel Cross years earlier.
If Northbridge ever resurfaces, go to Harbor Light alone. Sit in Booth Seven. Someone decent will eventually notice something wrong.
Jake almost laughed.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Ethan smiled.
“Dad thought so too.”
“Why follow instructions from a dead man?”
“Because the first new Northbridge transaction in years appeared two weeks ago.”
Jake finally understood.
General Cross had gone to Harbor Light intentionally.
His card being declined was not expected.
Jake paying the bill was truly chance.
But the meeting itself had been part of Michael’s contingency.
His father had reached across years.
Not to choose Jake.
But to create an opportunity for somebody.
Anybody.
To disrupt the pattern.
Jake looked at Ethan.
“My dad believed a random decent person would ruin a criminal conspiracy?”
“Apparently.”
“That may be the most Dad thing I’ve ever heard.”
His phone rang.
His mother.
Jake answered smiling.
The smile vanished.
“Mom?”
A man’s voice replied.
“Corporal Reynolds.”
Jake recognized Samuel Price.
His blood turned cold.
“You’re in prison.”
“Not anymore.”
Jake stood.
Ethan saw his expression.
Price continued.
“Your mother is safe for the moment.”
Jake whispered, “If you touch her—”
“I don’t want her.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Why?”
Price laughed.
“Because Jonathan Cross wasn’t the Architect.”
Jake’s breath stopped.
May you like
Price said one final sentence.
“Your father was.”
